On The Record: The way the game was meant to be played

By Steve Amedio, The Record

Saturday, December 14, 2013

There isn’t any doubt about where my interest in sports came from.

It’s an inheritance, a passion passed down from my late dad, Carmen Amedio, who enjoyed nothing better after a long day of delivering mail in Cohoes than to relax in front of the television to watch a sporting event.

In the winter months, his favored sport was basketball. But, not the NBA version.

He preferred to watch games that mattered, where players put out maximum effort not only for the entirety of a single contest but with an enthusiasm and intensity that made it obvious that every game was meaningful.

It meant the TV guide section of his daily newspaper had circles penned around each winter night’s college basketball games.

But, “Pop” took that one step beyond. He wanted to see the sport in its purest form.

He wasn’t a fan of 360-degree dunks or watching games dominated by whichever team had the best seven-footer. He didn’t want to see games decided by running and jumping.

Remember, his formative sports-fan years, as were those of anyone from the Greatest Generation, were spent watching the court magicianship of players like Bob Cousy, and teams that valued playing like a T-E-A-M in the truest sense.

He enjoyed the offensive pass-first artistry of the early 1970’s New York Knicks and the defensive mastery of Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics.

The modern-day extension, in his mind, was women’s college basketball.

By virtue of physical limitations, dunks in the women’s game are a rarity and few players can create their own shots with pure athletic gyrations.

He viewed women’s basketball as the way the sport was meant to be.

Women’s teams have to move the ball around to create open shots. Their play is less physical than the NFL lineman’s-like inside scrums that have infected men’s play. The women’s game features more teamwork, more strategy and more mid-range jump shooting.

And, the men’s game, even at the college level, seems to have lost some of its every-game-is-a-must-win intensity.

Pop’s interest in sports started growing in the early 1940’s, at a time closer to James Naismith’s invention of basketball than to the evolution of high fliers like Michael Jordan and LeBron James. It meant he appreciated Larry Bird a lot more than Dominique Wilkins.

To him, it seemed that the women’s game is closer to what the good Dr. Naismith envisioned for his creation than is the succession of dunks and individual athleticism that the men’s version has become.

All of that was passed down. The apple didn’t fall far from this family’s tree.

Like Pop, I enjoy watching a good b-ball game played by women every bit as much as ones played by the guys.

If you’re a true fan of the sport, it’s impossible not to appreciate a good pass resulting in a basket, or a precise play creating an open shot, or a fundamentally sound box-out in rebounding situations, or good defensive help … well, you get the point.

It just seems there’s more of all of that, by necessity, on the distaff side of roundball.

And, now, we get to see the very best of all of that when the NCAA tournament comes to town at the end of next season.

NCAA’s March Madness, it was announced earlier this week, is coming to Albany’s Times Union Center in 2015.

The facility will host regional rounds with games played, two on one night and one two nights later, between March 28-31 at the end of the 2014-15 season.

The first games here will be in the so-called “Swett 16” round. The next round will feature two of the remaining eight teams in the NCAA event.

It means we’ll get four teams that advanced out of early round play, in theory four of the nation’s best 16 teams still active.

It means that the survivor of regional play in Albany advances directly to the women’s Final Four.

Like we did with the Carmelo Anthony-led Syracuse men’s team that advanced out of regional play at the TUC in 2003, we could watch a team that ultimately wins a national championship.

Considering how the NCAA traditionally places teams close to home for early rounds and regional play, it probably means that we’ll see UConn, annually one of the best teams nationally.

It also means some other terrific teams will play here, too.

One of last year’s regional games, played in Bridgeport, Ct., featured a UConn victory over Maryland.

That’s a Maryland team that’s currently ranked No. 8 nationally, the same team that absolutely demolished a not-terrible Siena, 105-49, on Monday..

My dad would have enjoyed that one, watching a Maryland team that featured an unselfish star, 6-foot-2 multi-talented forward Alyssa Thomas, putting up a triple-double. She’s as good as it gets nationally, working on earning a third straight ACC Player of the Year award and mentioned as a potential first pick in this spring’s WNBA draft.

He would have enjoyed watching Maryland’s terrific ball movement resulting in wide open shots that were made with great regularity.

And, that team didn’t get past last year’s Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament.

That quality of play, though, is what we’ll get when the women’s regional tournament comes here after next season.

And, don’t give me the snide “It’s WOMEN’S basketball,” comments.

In truth, it’s basketball played in its most-fundamental form. The teams we’ll get here will be good. Real good.

Heck, we might even get a relatively local representative.

Marist made it to the Sweet 16 round in 2007.

And UAlbany, currently the No. 4 mid-major level team nationally, loses only one player (its fifth-leading scorer) off its current roster heading into next season.

When I read the news about that level of the women’s NCAA event coming here, it was an emphatic “Oh, Boy!”

My guess is crowds will be large. Capacity crowds of 8,594 turned out for both days of regional play last year at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport.

Albany, with a larger arena, should draw in excess of 10,000 to its 14,000-plus seat arena for each of the two days the tournament will be here. It’s an event worthy of more, worthy of sell-out crowds.

I know it’s something my dad would have enjoyed watching.

Thanks to him, I’m already looking forward to those games. You should be, too.

Steve Amedio’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday in The Record. He may be reached at hoopscribe1@aol.com